Jon Bell

Garden centers have to navigate choppy waters when pricing their goods

By Jon Bell — Posted January 30, 2024

For almost five years, Crystal Cady owned her own garden and farming business, Sunflower Acres Farm & Garden in Salem. Through it, she would grow and source plants and garden products. She sold mostly at farmers’ markets and plant shows, where it almost never failed that her hanging flower baskets were more expensive than anyone […]

Millennials are growing up, buying homes, and setting the stage for the industry’s future

By Jon Bell — Posted December 28, 2023

Now, nurseries and retail garden centers are looking at a long-term — and younger — source of continued growth: millennials and other younger folks who are growing up, buying homes, starting families and gardening.

Riding the highs and lows of shipping

By Jon Bell — Posted October 31, 2023

What the new, albeit temporary, shipping reality looks like for nurseries is lower shipping costs, better truck availability and more scheduling certainty. All of that is incredibly helpful since the demand for plants has held strong.

Taking care of our own

By Jon Bell — Posted October 11, 2023

A new mental health crisis line offers help for those facing the unique stresses of agriculture

The (not so) big chill

By Jon Bell — Posted July 26, 2023

Plant sales have cooled off since the highs of the COVID era, but 2023 is shaping up strongly so far for the green industry It got cold in Atlanta this past winter. One day in December, the mercury topped out at a frigid 7 degrees. “I can’t ever remember a single-digit day since I moved […]

Branching out with banking relationships

By Jon Bell — Posted June 21, 2023

Financing for the nursery industry can be tricky without a few financial friends Any business faces challenges, but nurseries have a unique set all to themselves. There’s nature to contend with, a perpetual shortage of labor, and the fact that crops planted today won’t be ready to sell, in many cases, for years. And when […]

Spraying sustainably

By Jon Bell — Posted April 20, 2023

An intelligent spraying system can help growers reduce pesticide use, save money and better manage their crops Until about six or seven years ago, Hans Nelson and Sons Nursery in Boring, Oregon, would apply standard pesticides to its roughly 150 acres of shade and flowering trees using traditional air-blast sprayers. The sprayers, used throughout the […]

The tribulations of big trees

By Jon Bell — Posted March 24, 2023

Growing bigger trees that will flourish in a changing climate takes a long-game approach For decades, tree-lined streets across the country — largely in the Southeast — would erupt in the bright white blossoms of Callery pear trees (Pyrus calleryana) every spring. Affordable, fast-growing and easily shipped, the trees had become the darlings of landscapers, […]

Water, water everywhere?

By Jon Bell — Posted February 24, 2023

Western nursery associations team up to tackle the rising tide of water woes Glenda Mostek, executive director of the Colorado Nursery and Greenhouse Association, has a colorful way of sizing up one of the bigger issues facing the Centennial State’s nursery industry. “Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting,” she said, quoting a phrase […]

Boxing out boxwood blight

By Jon Bell — Posted December 27, 2022

Growers must work vigilantly to keep the fungus that causes boxwood blight out of their nurseries Boxwood is one of the most popular landscaping plants around. It’s evergreen and pretty, it provides natural privacy, it’s easy to maintain and it can be shaped into attractive ornamental topiaries. In fact, so popular is boxwood that it’s […]